For a long time, I thought trust was something I decided.
What I learned instead was this:
my breath knew long before my mind did.

I didn’t learn this through belief or discipline.
I learned it the way the body learns anything true —
by noticing when it is free,
and by not interfering when it is.

There was relief in that realisation.
Not because life suddenly became easy,
but because something inside me stopped having to prove it knew what to do.

When breath becomes authority,
trust no longer needs belief —
it lives in the body.

There came a point where belief stopped helping.
Not because it was wrong —
but because my body no longer responded to it.

I could still think clearly.
I just couldn’t be talked into calm.

What began to matter instead were small, ordinary signals.
A tightening in the chest.
A breath that didn’t quite finish itself.
The subtle difference between effort and ease.

No amount of reasoning shifted those sensations.
They didn’t respond to insight.
They responded to space —
the kind that arrives when nothing is being demanded.

There is a particular kind of restraint that isn’t patience.
It’s the feeling of staying present without tightening.
Of not stepping in —
and not stepping away.

It’s quieter than discipline.
Heavier than it looks.

This kind of holding doesn’t feel virtuous.
It feels tiring.
And for a long time, I thought that tiredness meant something was wrong.

I see now it often just meant something was being carried —
sometimes longer than necessary,
simply because no one had said it could be put down.

There is a difference between avoiding pain and completing it.
One bypasses the body.
The other leaves the breath free.

Completion doesn’t arrive with clarity.
It arrives with release.

Sometimes as a sigh.
Sometimes as a yawn.
Sometimes as the quiet knowing that it’s time to rest.

Nothing dramatic.
Just the nervous system realising it no longer has to stay alert.

At some point, I noticed something simple.
When my breath was open, I didn’t interfere.
When it wasn’t, I waited.

Nothing else was required.

This wasn’t a practice I followed.
It was a way of being that slowly became familiar.

The breath didn’t need encouragement.
It didn’t need explanation.
It gently corrected what didn’t belong to me on its own.

Breath doesn’t ask for belief.
It doesn’t need reinforcement.

When it is free, it already knows how to lead.
Nothing else is required.